From: Alexey Sklyarenko <skylark1970@MAIL.RU>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Fri, April 19, 2013 11:38:22 AM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] swoony-baloony
He [Van] remembered with a pang of pleasure the indulgent skirt Ada had been wearing then, so swoony-baloony as the Chose young things said, and he regretted (smiling) that Lucette had those chaste shorts on today, and Ada, husked-corn (laughing) trousers. (Ada, 1.39)
Ballonnye rukava (the balloon sleeves) of a long Caucasus shirt are mentioned in Ilf and Petrov's Zolotoy telyonok ("The Little Golden Calf", Chapter Three "Your gas - our ideas"):
Завидя какого-нибудь совслужа в длинной кавказской рубашке с баллонными рукавами, он подъезжал к нему сзади и с горьким смехом кричал:
— Мошенники! А вот я вас сейчас под показательный подведу! Под сто девятую статью!
Catching sight of some civil servant in a long Caucasus shirt with balloon sleeves, he [Adam Kozlevich] would ride up from behind and yell at him, laughing bitterly: "Scoundrels! I’m going to take you right over to the show court!"
rukav = kurva (rukav - sleeve; kurva - whore)
At an invisible sign of Dionysian origin, they all [merry young gardeners wearing for some reason the garb of Georgian tribesmen and servant girls in sharovars] plunged into the violent dance called kurva or 'ribbon boule' in the hilarious program whose howlers almost caused Veen (tingling, and light-loined, and with Prince N.'s rose-red banknote in his pocket) to fall from his seat. (1.2)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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